Representatives of the local RUSAL subsidiary and the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) yesterday agreed to a bilateral engagement with the Labour Ministry as opposed to compulsory arbitration.
The Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) and the union met yesterday for the first time in months with the Labour Department—a week after Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir had threatened the company with compulsory arbitration.
Nadir made the threat after the company failed to turn up for a meeting called by the Labour Ministry.
The no-show by the company was subsequently condemned by the union. The union also said that the BCGI had written the Ministry stating that the Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) between itself and the union had come to an end and consequently, it did not consider the ministry’s invitation to attend the meeting with the union as valid.
GB&GWU President Leslie Gonsalves told Stabroek News that Nadir and the acting Chief Labour Officer Clive Nurse were present at the yesterday’s meeting.
A subsequent release from the bauxite union said that Nadir stated that the Ministry desired the parties to have bilateral engagements, since a recognition agreement exists between the two entities. Failure to honour this would leave him with no other alternative but to use the authority vested in him to impose compulsory arbitration, which would see him listing every issue raised by the union, the release said. The parties then agreed to pursue a bilateral engagement. “Bilateral engagement, in industrial relations, is an element of the conciliatory process which will see the minister engaging the parties individually as a method of bringing the parties together toward resolving the issues,” the release stated. This process is scheduled to start today with Nadir to meet with the BCGI representatives at 9:00 am and the GB&GWU representatives at 10:30 am. “The union will honour its commitment for the 10:30am meeting,” the release stated.
In his letter last week to Ruslan Volokhov, BCGI’s General Manager, Nadir accused the company of gross disregard for the laws of Guyana, following its refusal to attend a meeting with the GB&GWU and warned that compulsory arbitration could be invoked. Nadir said that the GB&GWU is the certified bargaining agent for a large section of the BCGI workforce and “you are legally bound to treat with them.” He said that the BCGI could not declare that there exists no collective bargaining agreement between the two sides.
He said too that the company seemed to be advised “very limitedly” as to the minister’s powers to intervene as he could refer the dispute to an advisory body or go as far as applying compulsory arbitration as has “been done in the past few years.”
The union and the company have been at loggerheads for more than a year after the BCGI fired 57 workers. In November, the company fired five employees in the fallout over a protest of the insanitary state of the kitchen and the poor quality of meals being prepared at the Aroaima work site.
The union, other parts of the local and international labour movement, political parties and civil society groups have criticised the government for not taking sterner action against the BCGI and for letting the industrial dispute drag on.
